Increased Federal, State and Local environmental regulations have produced an increased focus of environmental consciousness on a global level. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) along with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) have instituted increased and stringent regulations for the processing, manufacturing, utilization, and disposal of chemical compounds. For the purpose of this invention, the regulations of particular interest are those in the field of petroleum products, particularly those consisting of petroleum and petro-chemical based compounds (lubricating oils).
There are existing today numerous technologies for the reclamation and reprocessing of petroleum and petrochemical compounds including the recovery of oil to be used in power stations and factories as an alternative source of fuel. When dealing with large volumes of these waste streams, there is a certain degree of technological and economic feasibility. One particular segment of this disposal market deals specifically with a variety of filtration components such as engine oil filter media and other filtration media utilized in automotive truck, marine and aircraft applications. These filtration media, when removed from the engine application, do represent petroleum and petrochemical contaminated materials. These filtration media typically do not provide enough oil on a per unit basis to warrant a recycling activity and so pose a significant disposal problem. This problem is of particular importance in the face of increased environmental regulations which are imposed on large corporations.